An Out­side Chance

Au­to­camp of­fers a glam­orous and won­der­fully un­tra­di­tional ‘de­signer’ way to pitch camp in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia

The thought of camp­ing may have some ro­man­tic ap­peal but the re­al­ity, whether lug­ging a trailer about, or strug­gling to erect a tent only for it to col­lapse at the first sight of rain, is enough to keep most of us away. There is an al­ter­na­tive how­ever and it comes cour­tesy of Au­to­camp – a novel glamping en­ter­prise that be­gan in 2013 in Santa Bar­bara. They’ve opened a se­cond lo­ca­tion, in Cal­i­for­nia’s Sonoma County, 90 min­utes north of San Fran­cisco and it’s turn­ing heads. Set within the pic­turesque en­vi­rons of a red­wood for­est, the camp en­com­passes 24 de­signer-mod­elled Airstream trail­ers, ten lux­u­ri­ous tents, and a mod­ern Frank Lloyd Wright-in­spired cen­tral pavil­ion that serves as a com­mu­nity hub. You should make the most of the bi­cy­cles on of­fer to ven­ture out and sam­ple the area’s winer­ies, dab­ble in some wa­ter sports at the Rus­sian River, and dis­cover the charm­ing lo­cal eater­ies and boutiques, safe in the knowl­edge that you’ll be re­turn­ing to turn­down ser­vice, lux­u­ri­ous bed­ding, spa-in­spired bath­rooms, and even free Wi-fi in what must be the world’s most Be­spoke- friendly camp site.